William Cowper


English Poet and Hymnodist

Author Quotes

Time, as he passes us, has a dove's wing, unsoil'd, and swift, and of a silken sound.

Truth is the golden girdle of the globe.

We start from the Mother's Arms and we run to the dust shovel.

When was public virtue to be found where private was not? Can he love the whole who loves no part? He be a nation's friend, who is, in truth, the friend of no man there? Who slights the charities for whose dear sake, that country, if at all, must be beloved?

With melting airs, or martial, brisk, or grave; some chord in unison with what we hear is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.

'Tis hard if all is false that I advance a fool must now and then be right, by chance.

Truths on which depend our main concern, that 'tis our shame and misery not to learn, shine by the side of every path we tread with such a lustre, he that runs may read.

We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works die too.


With oaths like rivets forced into your brain.


'Twere better to be born a stone of ruder shape, and feeling none, than with a tenderness like mine and sensibilities so fine! Ah, hapless wretch! Condemn'd to dwell forever in my native shell, ordained to move when others please, not for my own content or ease; but toss'd and buffeted about, now in the water and now out.

What is it but a map of busy life, its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?

Where penury is felt the thought is chain'd, and sweet colloquial pleasures are but few.

With outstretched hoe I slew him at the door, and taught him NEVER TO COME THERE NO MORE.

'Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat, to peep at such a world; to see the stir of the great babel, and not feel the crowd.


What is there in the vale of life half so delightful as a wife when friendship, love and peace combine to stamp the marriage bond divine?

Where tempests never beat nor billows roar.

With respect to the education of boys, I think they are generally made to draw in Latin and Greek trammels too soon. It is pleasing, no doubt, to a parent, to see his child already in some sort a proficient in those languages at an age when most others are entirely ignorant of them; but hence it often happens that a boy who could construe a fable of Æsop at six or seven years of age, having exhausted his little stock of attention and diligence in making that notable acquisition, grows weary of his task, conceives a dislike for study, and perhaps makes but a very indifferent progress afterwards.

'Tis providence alone secures in every change both mine and yours.

United yet divided, twain at once: so sit two kings of Brentford on one throne.

What peaceful hours I once enjoy'd! How sweet their memory still! But they have left an aching void the world can never fill.

Where thou art gone, adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.

With spots quadrangular of diamond form, ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife, and spades, the emblems of untimely graves.

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English Poet and Hymnodist